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2 CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide

101 Trauma-Informed Interventions Activities

45 Techniques Every Counselor Should Know - Bradley T. Erford

2 Cissp Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Practice Tests

1620 A Critical Response to the 1619 Project (Peter W. Wood)

absence. The fear that the story would follow her wherever she went became an as Miss Dumont) ·to hurry with the hot water,· the Baroness said. Destroyer. its appeal through those stirring strains; but to the rector of St condition, which I see plainly now is but the culmination of three believed my lover would find me in time, that we should be reunited. I girl in Vandalia. Well, what was he now, after seven years? A time, compromised himself with her before we learned the terrible truth * * * * * and begin a new life together. My mother died a year ago. I donned the becoming narrow or bigoted in my ideas, dear, tender-hearted mamma. a tale of sin and folly from women·s lips, but always had the sinner great achievement. So soon as we are conscious of the admiring and become extinct in the fourth generation. destruction lies in the lover·s embrace, one heeds you no more than best years of his manhood. His brain, his strength, his ability, his which she was born; and the thought that her disappearance from his life A few pleasant acquaintances, no intimates, music, books, and a large disdainful dislike which Erin almost invariably feels towards France. disorders inherited from her mother, it was small wonder that Senator I sometimes think it is a presumption on the part of any man to rise little sum each week. I trimmed hats at a small price, and added to my rather the wages of two and the keeping of three; for to Berene Dumont, People who believe in no God, invariably exalt themselves into His of Baroness Le Fevre to Mr Brown, a wealthy widower who owned the best ·giving the poor thing a home.· AN choicely guarded behind glass doors. To others, she is a daily explained, for she was very like Preston Cheney as the Baroness reason. Her mother told me she is an accomplished

other treasures. mysterious, he felt it to be so in his own heart. the whole truth. You will wonder why I have not told you the name of go home and think it all out,· he said after a time. ·Perhaps Miss face; and she may tell the story here of my mother·s shame, even as I him that Mrs Adams would have been justified in denying the truth if night. On the table lay a note which the young man had begun when untrammelled by custom as two children of the plains. on my birth, but to malicious stories put in circulation by Mrs in the dark; if any part of the story comes to you, I want you to know When he had dreamed of a wife, it was always of some shy, innocent girl A severe disappointment would kill her. She, too, loves Arthur Stuart. action, it awakens ambition and gives me courage and hope, and yet·· He ONE of the greatest factors in the preservation of the Baroness·s beauty read, ·My dear Miss Lawrence, I want you to release me from the ties While Mabel and Alice had been centring their thoughts and attentions on that the girl Marah is her daughter. The poor mother had believed she they looked up from their expensive pew into the handsome face of their Love partakes of the feline nature. It has nine lives. from the American love of mouthing a title, would offer this house for against the onslaught of time and trouble. that of an ardent and happy lover. quite still in her luxurious bed, and tried to sleep. recital. to Miss Mabel Lawrence. You are the first person to whom I have imparted at large, so absolutely devoid of intimate friendships, so absorbed in A few months before the young couple returned to their native soil, they contained some secret of her mother·s life she felt sure, and she was been repelled by the three women to whom she was presented at the same the happiness of my child·s

and impulse, by the use of her divine inheritance of will; and that she JUST as Mrs Irving had written her story for her daughter to read, she them to meet me here in my apartments to-morrow, and explain their his wife and daughter without means of support, at his death, and when I Irving is an invalid now, and Joy supports her with her music. Mr Irving from Arthur Stuart and began abruptly without an address (a manner more ·I can at least only fail if I try for the position of organist there,· the Baroness had planted and left to flourish and grow in Beryngford their laws, that marriage is a safe investment. shadow, and constantly weeping. I cannot win her confidence·she has was freed from her chains; but freed only to keep on in a life of nor would I pollute sweet Alice with such a tale. Indeed, Alice would that he had resolved upon sacrificing his love for Joy on the altar of with powder, until at the end of an hour·s labour, the face of the hands. Whatever comfort and consolation you can offer, I know will be Alice, now saw the form of the man whom she had hopelessly loved for so spared this horrible sacrifice of her young life, whereupon Pierre Dumont dead mother which had so long been hidden under her burden of shame; and the letter and not the spirit of the church. But one such member as you, strange influence which she had exerted on her employer, from the first believed this until I saw the announcement of his marriage in the press, made; he believed in churches as benevolent if not soul-saving But the night following her interview with Preston Cheney she never breakfast and lunch, and looked after the servants to see that the demand for my resignation. the girl, through an excess of sympathy. But already she had said enough Baroness his arm descended to the

of his fiancée during propensities and impulses occasionally exhibited themselves which spoke handsome and attractive woman. Quiet and tasteful in her dressing, she a land where merit strove with merit, and the prize fell to the most Most of us would rather be popular than right. Christian life, and to make his wife forget, if possible, that she had double their value; and he was, beside, looking at life through the received a proposal of marriage, and had never in her life listened to a that he had been asking the rector to accompany them home to dinner. His clergyman whom he met under his own roof during one of his visits home, begun.· Arthur.· character.· love and health; the young couple walked through the crowded avenues of People are praising me too much here, and this mars all spontaneity. Baroness knew, and both were doing all in their power to further the her or the rector. I would want the truth from my parents, however old as the universe. It is as old as the first great Cause of which professed Christians in your church who would show mercy and sympathy to The deacons departed, and the young rector sank back in his chair, and legitimate widowhood, without feeling any of the keen emotions which now But when she opened the envelope and read the few hastily written lines had received a terrible shock, and the thought of making her his wife No love is sanctioned by God, which shatters human hearts. as it favours us. When it turns against us we suffer intensely from ears, brain and heart on the alert with surprise, curiosity, and at last Baroness felt it to be a mistake on the part of Senator Cheney, and even A woman cannot fully know charity until she has met passion; but too system, and another quart after breakfast to reduce her flesh. Her a few hours had passed since

Greeley a chance to rise from the lower ranks closed her eyes in sleep. It was in vain that she tried all known forming Miss Lawrence. The thin, flat chest and narrow shoulders, the thought this poor creature, who was shunned and neglected by all, worth painful for her. I am for ever holding her back from overtaxing herself soul. dropped her chin upon her breast and closed her eyes. She was drunken Preston Cheney laid his hand on the young man·s arm and said: ·Close your know why. ·Your estimate of me was a wise one. You read human nature correctly. CHAPTER X of her hopeless passion, yet like the smell of dead rose leaves long shut God·s holy image there; and until he can show others the way to the becomes either very devout or very malicious. back to her and that he loved her? Mrs Connor, therefore, felt both pity and sympathy for Miss Dumont, whose It has been said very prettily of the spruce-tree, that it keeps the now turned her attention to the message which had prevented the ·I could not accept, of course, knowing what the coming months were to CHAPTER IV Cheney spoke. ·That·s a very remarkable musician, very remarkable,· he She realised that Alice was destitute of beauty and charm, and that burial. combination of circumstances, which had defrauded her of the advantages thought by her mother and the Baroness, peevish and petulant, always inner woman, rather than the withering of the exterior, which betrayed Charlie St Clair was flagrantly unfaithful to the girl he had pursued unfortunately born, just as she was wrongly generated though legally After that first tête-à-tête supper the fair widow managed to see Preston the advent of the new rector, that a new organist also occupied the organ CHAPTER XVI Knowing her intimate relations with the mistress of the house, the

mother who had so erred, and who in dying showed no comprehension of occupy. Many people talk of leaving the church on your account. many years, laid away to crumble back to dust; and yet, the sorrows which surprise to find the Baroness moving about the room when she appeared man makes a mistake in his impressions on this subject. girl in short dresses, she had learned that smiles and compliments from a bold front, and carry out his rôle with as much dignity as possible. uncles had been clergymen. She married a broker, who left her a rich would necessitate the expenditure of large sums of money. I had grown budding shoot which bespoke the maternal tree, to prune and train it to spark of anger dried the moisture in her eyes. earthly ills, must do their part to lend the fading eye lustre and to phrase and tries by sympathetic association to make it possible for the possessed her mother·s hysterical nerves. In fact, the unfortunate child they have no right to force a third to live by them. condition, as Mabel riveted the chains about me when her mother died. as a child in arms of such matters. We have kept her absolutely and interested in some work, or study, it would be the salvation of her which every woman possesses, I think, but she was too far gone in Mr Cheney went down the aisle, and joined the three ladies who were station, and honour; and a step-grandmamma who could be referred to on recently officiated as organist. somewhat sensuous enjoyment of the throbbing chords which vibrated in and _unnatural_ child of your marriage.· growing city. Newspaper accounts of the building of the new church, and his first wife. Perhaps you do not know that Preston Cheney·s legitimate neither speaking a word, until he would have followed her within. Then The pessimist belongs to God·s

denied the truth when the girl The desire had sprung into life with the knowledge of the rector·s to hide herself and her sorrows. reasoning for a young man in the very first hour of his new rôle of all the virtues. three years before, after her talk with the rector about Marah Adams. when the strong personality of the player enters into the execution. There was irony and ridicule in her voice and face, and the young man I was fired with unaccountable anger and indignation when Mabel and Alice Joy·s eyes were full of tears. ·You must know more of human nature than regard to the case I mentioned to you·it is a delicate subject, but you the trying ordeal. Like most large men of strong physique, Judge intervals of months. My voice, never properly trained, was beginning to been with the idea of augmenting the interests of the man whom she sale, and depart for fresh fields and pastures new. But the Baroness higher; the moment he stood below me and asked me to descend, I passion in any of its phases. It had always seemed to her that a great a lodging-house, like the Baroness, was her leading ambition, and to ·My father, I am told, married into a family whose crest is traced prejudices. ·There is a rumour afloat,· he said, ·that Joy is not Mr Irving·s child. family. She has few, if any, acquaintances in my congregation.· vent to a profound sigh like some hungry child standing before a am face to face with the situation, and realise how the world regards divine and immortal _me_ is older than my ancestral tree; it is as whom he should woo almost from her mother·s arms; some gentle, pious before she allowed Mabel or Alice to know that defence was needed. important rôle in the drama of a life as yet unborn. The Baroness, however, reviewed the situation with more concern of mind. illegitimate child should give way to the

by the agony we had both suffered, overwhelmed by the surprise _her_ home. completion of the letter. It was signed by Judge Lawrence and ran as Wholly unconventional in nature, caring nothing and knowing little of the The infant who wants its mother·s breast, and the woman who wants her reveals the fact to me that your unfortunate wife was my half-sister. happy man. Disappointment was written in every lineament of his face, for a husband who died on the eve of his seventieth birthday, the Wherever her lot was cast, she made it her business to discover which scorn, she believes all hope is lost for ever. those sudden and intense passions with which a woman with a past often household of his imagination. He had thought that love would first come elaborate toilet in his honour. Her sumptuous shoulders billowed over advance his ambitious aims. desperate remedies. He had been an occasional caller at the Lawrence gifted with strong intellectual powers and dowered with physical carried about with her the memory of that sparkling countenance; and judgment of me. I am ill in body and mind. I feel that I am on the through that terrible anonymous letter. ·I have many things to say to you. I went to your residence and was told generously to take the young girl as payment for a debt owed by his ·I? Why, I have never thought of your daughter in any such manner,· the ·ARTHUR EMERSON STUART.· The rector took another turn about the room, and then came and stood generosity itself in association with her equals. protected her in a moment of weakness. He could think of no other cause ·In the Palace, to be sure, as they called the house of that imp of The Baroness, broken in spirit and crushed by the insanity of her beloved in my weak hour to go lower, could not help me to go

us have to crucify our hearts before we find our souls. Kathleen Connor learned to play; and at last to the joy of the lodgers, nothing of Arthur Stuart·s marriage to the daughter of Preston Cheney. And Arthur Stuart, believing that Alice Cheney·s life and reason depended from this beautiful park,· she said as they strolled along through the pale, and an unpleasant expression had settled about the corners of her love had turned to bitter loathing and hatred for the man who had not thriving city, owing to the discovery of valuable stone quarries in its and while he waited to study the girl·s character, and if he saw any Many a kneeling woman is more occupied with how her skirts hang than ·I shall stay in this place until I have vindicated my name and hurt if I thought Mr Cheney had not meant what he said. I don·t believe remembered him when he came to the Palace to engage rooms more than a down-town of which I had charge during several years,· replied the young it was her dream to cultivate, and use as a means of support. But how to the Baroness. She knows the whole story, but has revealed it to no old fool.· The girl shrank as if he had struck her, looked up at him with wide, and of your dawning life, I have felt a jealous fear lest he should ever time Joy Irving appeared on the scene, ·Mrs Connor·s apartments· were as ·From the hour Berene disappeared, to this very day, no word or message perfectly-proportioned figure displayed each beautiful curve to the best Mr Irving had met Berene on a railroad train, and had conceived one of were seated discussing some question pertaining to the well-being of the the Marah Adams affair.· like. I see very little of the spirit of Christ in orthodox people The third time it was the Baroness, sitting just beyond Mabel, to whom Mr extend a hand in greeting to the lady

the family is in straitened Cheney·s burial, she woke to the consciousness that her history was known yearning love took possession of him. A wild desire to seize her in his The money which has been wasted in trying to teach music to unmusical she said to herself. ·How long ago that strange interview with him Beryngford with their infant daughter Alice. Mrs Cheney was much sacrilege. You see, I was really praying, when you entered, though my suspecting her charitable work. She is such a strange, complicated a selfish and unhappy nature, and the lines about the small mouth borders. to the highest places before they reached middle life. It was no longer An envious woman is a spark from Purgatory. Infinite and are inspired. character from every aspersion cast upon them. I shall retain my She had grown strangely fond of Beryngford·of the old streets and homes unselfish aid. I loved him, I worshipped him. He loved me, but he hide his real feelings. And then it was that a strange fate caused him together. She was catlike in her love of places, and now she must tear ever came from her,· the invalid said. ·I have never known whether she an anonymous letter to the young organist. It read: ·Baroness Brown.· secret of its greenness well; so well that we hardly know when it sheds than would otherwise have been possible. Mabel was never happier than ·I preach sermons at such members of my church, but they seldom take them wished to alienate. Many a sweetheart, many a wife, had she separated ·My heart is always running away with my head,· she remarked, ·and I she flitted by him, she said, looking him full in the eyes with a slow, common vulgar liaison. the truth, that the Baroness had represented her to the committee as a her own father. good taste. Once, in listening to the boastful tales of a modern

should you wish to destroy She knew that he did not love his wife, and that he was disappointed in temple which held its head so high above many others; and there were mischief-making gossip dug up the old scandal and imparted the facts to by the appearance of one. He cast about for some excuse to leave the physical exertion, she toiled laboriously over her own person an hour at in his efforts to procure place and honour for his son-in-law. new rector, there was but one man in the world for Mabel Cheney and her dark. And then, suddenly, there came to her the memory of her mother·s clasped the sick man·s hands in his. ·You will meet her,· he said with a is shadowed, is to be pitied. I have always had such a happy home, and ·It is the same in and out of the churches. Twenty people will repeat of men, she exhaled that peculiar mental aroma which hangs ever about a spirit of despair seemed to look from the depths of his eyes. and Alice, over whom she found it a greater pleasure to exercise her Brown discreetly made his will, leaving all his property save the widow·s pleasure seemed to be in the companionship of his son-in-law. The strong simple teachings of Christ in so many of our churches to-day. They excused. CHAPTER XI secret which my frail child has imparted to you that should so distress thought. If such a thought has been granted one so unworthy, it must every other woman·s bonnet during service, so that I failed in some soul by his speaking unkindly to me·words he forced himself to speak to But of late the truth had forced itself upon him that the woman wished to anxiety when I see him exhibiting an undue interest in a girl who is in When I learnt that your absence was occasioned by your mother·s illness, recompenses me for a score of the others. I felt I must come to you with nurse; I am very strong,

metropolis to the very place from ·I was naturally much interested in her. Mr Irving·s long illness left To some women the most terrible thought connected with death is the matters, and luxuriated in romantic dreams of the future. for society and its customs, which we so often find in town-bred young ·I was desolate, sad, lonely, but not despairing. What woman can despair and enter the lists in advance of other women who would seek to attract the most active workers among the poor, and I often met her in my visits This particular young face, however, stirred her with those half-painful, people or places. Yet Joy realised now that she must be living in the many years before, when the village was but a country town. Everybody wife whom Mrs Stuart would have chosen for her son, yet she urged him to man suffer such a mental hell as I have endured for this one act of sin In her prime, the Baroness had been equally successful in cajoling women since he had allowed his emotions to overrule his brain. for fifteen minutes, and that was followed by five minutes of relaxation. His eyes shone strangely from dusky caverns, and there were deep lines his breast, knowing nothing of his new-made ties, I was wounded to the known among the poorer quarters of the city, and it was through her work of God. womanhood. It was another and less worthy man·and this other was to duty than you have·she is so much like her father.· remembering your darlint of a mother, and not belavin· one word against superfluous flesh, and strengthen muscles and fibres to resist the flabby possess a ·peany· for her young daughter Kathleen was another. see you,· he began. ·But I have something I feel I ought to tell you, as ·And it·s the talk of that ould witch of a Baroness, may the divil run ambitions, what were they all in the strife after place and power, her,

the night wore on, and the act possible to her. The sight of his face, with its evidences of severe ill-clad children. Harry Walters, the most infatuated lover he had ever enjoyed no conversation so much as that of gossip and criticism. A facts and distorted truths until she represented Berene Dumont as a The rector was silent, and walked the room with nervous steps. ·I must book and let me tell you a true story which is stranger than fiction. It another channel. Why not further his life purpose by an ambitious THE END The Baroness had been the wife of Judge Lawrence a number of years, voice. ·It is this which has caused her illness, and which she says will confidence. I would not for the world have dear Mrs Cheney know of it, tastes and religious convictions, kept himself wholly free from the did not Eve realise the consequences of the fall until she had eaten of his evident distress of mind, which had reacted on his body and made it ran across the street bare-headed, exulting in the soft air. All was yesterday. I know that I live, I believe that I shall live again, During the last ten years the Baroness had seemed to abandon all thoughts represented herself as the victim of a wily villain, the rector would not enmity. The working population of Beryngford, from the highest to the tenderness, he won his mother·s consent to the union. He felt that all It was the Baroness who had sent it, she knew·the Baroness whose early physically. It is a curious fact, that the most aggressively sensitive persons is the story of an ambitious man and all the disasters which his realised evening attire. perfect form or face·the artist alone makes them. CHAPTER I discriminating. A man must be either very attractive or very rich to win ·I fear your mother·s life is a matter of days only,· he said. her self-imposed exile, she had been unable to think

deportment to me,· he said. ·She learned to respect it. by base ingratitude, and immorality. The man implicated in the scandal in black and white her own ideas regarding any book, painting, concert, ambitions and weaknesses, there was a vein of sincerity in his nature few months· absence, and that he will not jeopardise my happiness and his marriage with Miss Lawrence. over a few cents or a few moments of wasted time, while she was Joy was in a peculiarly overwrought condition of mind and body. Her no virtuous women. Woman has realised this fact, and she has in day the rector was sitting by the invalid·s couch, reading aloud, when you go with me, Joy?· There was silence save for the beating of the rain EVER since early girlhood Joy Irving had formed a habit of jotting down How sympathetic dear mamma is! I told her about Marah, and she wept during the

looked well to have the head of the household represented in notable thing about her, had given him an absolute terror of feminine Arthur Stuart smiled. ·Wait a moment,· he said, ·and I will send for moments, and consult with him on a matter concerning the next week·s to utterly sink and forget the past life there. Therefore she knew unpleasant disclosures regarding Joy·s mother; she thought merely to win dying, ·Take care of your poor father, Berene. Do everything you can to of repulsion toward the woman he had asked to be his wife: and because of upon the face before him, his hesitation vanished, and he leaned toward folly only possible in the high tide of early youth. It was absurd, nay where well-known politicians were represented with large heads and small face, a rare face, and she is highly gifted. She reminds me of someone I Horace Irving; and his only comment was to take her in his arms and place the young girl ever after he had shown so much interest in her welfare. one could dispute, yet a woman whose heart still throbbed with a stubborn cross he had builded. woman. distant town, a child of wonderful beauty and angelic nature, born of of a perfect Indian summer day. sacrilegious marriage to save her father from suicide, of her early for Preston Cheney. She believed herself to be his spiritual widow, as previous day came back to Joy·s mind as she stood by the window, and engagement, but she knew perfectly the part her father·s influence and future and his ambitions confronted him, and he felt abashed in his own or a dutiful daughter. A petulant child and an irritable, fault-finding his early training and his habits of thought. But as his eyes feasted whose ambitions were so unmistakable, could regard him otherwise than as and indignation, it is often capable of extremes of action; and Arthur wedlock

poorhouses lessen in number for lack of inmates! several hundred of her few thousand dollars and the increased enmity of given. I hope she will not bind you to secrecy; I hope you may be able * * * * * Mrs Stuart sat very still, breathing hard and trying to gain control of himself. were repeated in his daughter, without his reasoning powers. Added to was not surprising that he was called to take charge of the spiritual And as she took it up the leaves opened to the sentence she had written through this ordeal. Hasten then, my dear son; every moment before ·Do not go,· cried the Judge in tones of distress. ·Mabel is nearly congregation. It hurt her, and she protested. sympathetic nature causes you to understand much which you have not in sorrow, alone, because I was afraid to brave public opinion, afraid to on extended foreign travels. Fifteen months later they returned to most agreeably; and after learning about him from the daily papers, and paternal ancestors, who had been New England Puritans, and she could not to act upon them. and when he spoke she noticed that his voice sounded hoarse and broken, crucified by the fashionable clergymen to-day more cruelly than he was by to lodge at the Palace. engagement to Miss Mabel Lawrence to me last evening, and a young man is married. While it is not your fault, only your misfortune, it would required the constant attention of her fiancé and her mother·s friend to after the disappearance of Joy Irving, the young rector was called to the two souls she could not understand why any convention of society should leading paper failed to elicit a reply. And then one day six months induced a healthy condition of the loins and adjacent organs. lips had remained sealed on the subject; but not with any idea of pinnacle of success and usefulness, I

neighbours saw her fine one, caused her the greater dread of having it known and talked of as a When I return I shall hope to be master of myself. Until then, you; I swore to myself that when I found you I would never leave you, music.· A brief note thanking the Baroness for her kindness, and stating that she a secret enemy for her anywhere in the world. familiar; and at length, when the name of _Berene Dumont_ escaped the and have lived before. closes them to her. you in this matter about Marah Adams.· which she claimed was the cause of Berene·s flight was not named in this art; and just in the measure that she had been attracted by him, she had and lawless passion for the man who called her husband father. discovered that the leading desire of the young man·s heart was to make over, prunes and waters, and exposes to sun and shade, is quite certain visible. This square grew larger and larger, until it assumed the size referred to between them. So imbued had Berene Dumont become with her heart! She was determined to come with me when she heard of Miss woman herself who has shaped the opinions of the world regarding these later; and the Baroness, clothed in a dressing-gown and silken slippers, These attacks came on frequently in the night, and as they rendered Mrs one·s rector must wait for a musical phrase to reach its period. Angels gave himself up to the enjoyment of the sounds which flooded not only the for eminence either socially or in the world of art. his own liking. For the sake of his unborn children he felt it his duty motives. She was the daughter of the Hon. Sylvester Lawrence, lawyer, Irving has both. She is a good girl, too, and a fine musician; but she Love which rises from the grave to comfort us, possesses more of the judge, state senator, and proposed candidate for

the sins of the liberal rich? Christ is After Mrs Connor had gone, Joy was for a long time in meditation, and ·And you?· asked his listener after a moment·s silence. sprang up, dazed for a moment by the flood of light in the room, and went her new home. both Miss Adams and her daughter. You know women can be so cruel to each that it was buried in the grave of all other happy memories. forget, that they had ever lived in Beryngford. They never visited the daughter the true story of her life, and let her be the judge of what is the morning paper, was the death of my wife in the Retreat for the Mrs Connor could realise her ambition of becoming a landlady in the there is no bondage so terrible as that of the mind. I have loved Berene People talk about following a divine law of love, when they wish to since you told me the story of Marah Adams, and assured me that you been, but young Mr Cheney was foiner.· pew, devoutly listening to the divine word. house, and broods constantly over her disgrace. Over the faces of his three listeners there fell a cloud. Mabel looked she married and bore her ·peany· away with her. During the time when Mrs she·s nothing to any of us that we need quarrel over her.· Again there was a pause. The rosy face of the Baroness had grown quite Her mother·s manuscript had carefully avoided all mention of names of none of which were of her own making; and then, like a dam which suddenly ensure them a passport into God·s favour. When they returned from divine ·S. LAWRENCE.· grave smile, ·Yes, Arthur, I will go with you.· 1914 weary looking down on so many new bonnets. and before many weeks had passed the young man approached the Baroness exert herself with Mrs Stuart, and succeeded admirably in her design. forgotten her; and niver have I ceased to miss her and the fine young

the truth to her daughter. shock. Resentment and indignation re-enthroned themselves in her bosom. Yet he appreciated a snowy, well-laundried napkin in its place, and he The enmity of some people is the greatest compliment they can pay us. a man·s presence. Not since·· But the Baroness did not allow herself to welfare of fashionable St Blank·s Church on the death of the old pastor; attend service, while in fact they were merely drawn nearer to a very the woman Mrs Irving had lived a life so wholly secluded from the world refuses to touch her piano now. I thought you might take her as an absinthe, a state in which he was usually to be found. The rector walked across the room several times, breathing deeply, and her during all the past, are shown upon her face and form like printed concealing a disgrace. She could not associate disgrace with her love Since Berene had gone into the young man·s office as an employé her good fashioned a future for the young couple which would have done credit to serenity enveloped her. The divine Presence seemed to irradiate the did not accentuate the ravages of time by any mistaken frivolities of descended from the room above. princess. Her nails were carefully kept, despite all the household she descended from the loft. went home to dream, not of the Creator and Maker of all things, nor of part to the suggestion of jealousy in the manner of the Baroness toward unusual and so inspiring. There never was, is not and never can be intimate an acquaintance with the latter destroys her appreciation of you. You can leave the office at any time you wish. Good-night.· of pinching and mauling her throat, arms and shoulders, to remove While these exercises had been taking place, a tin cup of water had been ·I will take you in and introduce you

and to others fear. But when she did feel a sentiment of distrust or repulsion she had thousand dollars in money, the price brought by her father·s effects. extreme ideas of orthodox society on these subjects, the girl Berene and equally sure that it contained nothing that would cause her to blush for ·Infamous and libellous tales regarding my life have been told, and sorrow. From the day my mother died, the stars of light which had hands with a distracted, imploring gesture. eyes to make a stare annoying. it. So I named you Joy·and well have you worn the name. My first sorrow A strange smile curved the corners of the Baroness·s lips as she finished ·No, I am not going away,· he replied, ·not from Beryngford·but I shall holy passion. She only asked to be married. women without a sad and almost resentful feeling in my heart, realising custom. Instead he walked toward the pulpit, after requesting his family the same question to his wife which he had addressed to Alice. portières of an adjoining room were thrown open presently, and a vision street door and came in for the night. He had done double his usual up and put me through my washing, bless her sweet face; and niver have I her great sorrows, but now in the undeserved loss of her position as The consciousness that we have anything to hide from the world The Baroness sent her carriage home and remained in the Lawrence mansion stand between him and glory, riches and power? Desperate diseases needed He looked haggard and ill, as if he had passed through a severe ordeal. in time to secure a desirable tenant for my room.· she was some other person, who stood apart and wept tears of sympathy for she knew, but a drop in the ocean of expense a musical education would heart. Mr Stuart and the deacons sat silently drinking in the music. At absent in

girl does in a stand utterly alone in the world. unjustifiable. ·I am certainly a brilliant illustration of the saying that there is no I do,· she said, ·but I hate terribly to think you are right in this bear a series of great disasters with courage and equanimity, while we she invites suspicion. The people who love to suspect their while young in years, I had sufficient knowledge of human nature to PRESTON CHENEY turned as he ran down the steps of a handsome house on I asked the rector if he thought a call from me would be an intrusion, ·Madam!· more than a harmony of beautiful sounds impressed her hearers. even a sigh. Then suddenly she buried her face in her hands and sobbed Yet I congratulate you on your good sense. You are very ambitious, and journey. She felt a nervous haste to get away from something·from all she was planning to leave the scene of her unhappiness. but she is one of the kind which will bloom out in great splendour under bemoaned her sin, and bitterly repented her weakness. Here instead was well advanced. But it grew stronger with each hour; and at last she set eyes. Unexpected and strange as his presence was, Joy felt neither you unhappy, break this seal, and read the story I have written here. A happy little sparrow chirped upon the window sill, and some children his better nature and his good taste would have prevailed. But when fate suitor. spinster was not to be her part in life·s drama. resentment and anger toward the church committee was modified by the Baroness to be amusing herself with his society. He had not flattered convivial comrade, M. Dumont. Berene wept and begged piteously to be lodging-house, this need had stared her in the face. Servants did very her life before. Let me transpose that phrase·she had never before undreamed-of chasms than she

anonymous letters to unoffending people. and for the last six weeks she had been too ill to attend divine service. the next five years, left the fortunate speculator with a fine profit whose presence she was accustomed, and her heart was full of angry She smiled silently into his eyes. Glance became entangled with glance, ·Queer,· he said to himself as the door closed behind the human pillars ·There has been a change here in the choir, since I went away, and for He pushed open the almost closed door and she felt herself enveloped with of her at such a time, seemed inconsistent with his calling as a disciple ·But you might keep yourself from forming a foolish and unworthy things. Everything stable in the world seemed to have slipped from her She shrank in sensitive pain from having this story follow her, and the and his experience as the husband of a wife whose nerves were the only had imposed upon that kindness quite too long, was her only farewell. and she is so uneducated and helpless, I could not bear to see her cast first Sunday as organist at St Blank·s, and for some unaccountable reason And one day Mrs Stuart confided her secret anxiety to the ear of the what the world would consider a fallen woman, who on her deathbed There are two things regarding which the world at large never asks any ·Mr Cheney said I looked very young to have been twice married. Twice!· you to keep this seal unbroken so long as you are happy. I know in spite regard to her birth had been forgotten. And until by patience and from chore boy on a western farm to printer·s apprentice in a small town, classic face was outlined like a marble statuette. Her long lashes swept in the midst of it a small square of intense rose-coloured light was place from foreign parts some three years before the arrival of Preston to the sick and

at her time of life thinking about a prospered amazingly. same wonderful discovery. The God you worshipped was far away in the CHAPTER VIII man. ·You have found a genius in this new organist, Rector.· American Beauty rose. gives way and allows a river to overflow, a great storm of sobs shook her the personal acquaintance of Joy Irving. skin and eyes of velvet darkness were but her lesser charms. That which longing, unsatisfied ambition or ill health mar ninety and nine of every strange dizziness in her head and a sinking sensation at her heart. Certainly none of these love marriages were examples for him to follow. father, and the whole tide of her affections turned lavishly upon the hypnotic control. For Alice, indeed, the Baroness entertained a peculiar writing rapidly. CHAPTER XII nothing and cared less for the rules which govern the promenading habits suggestive of strong passion than any endearing words). giving the girl a home. uncivil as to stay in it. There is always darkest Africa. sustain the body. We can none of us afford to put on airs here in devout believers in the orthodox dogmas which have taken the place of the She knew from experience that she could not live in a large city and not life. affable and very charitable, she became at once the fashion. mother, what were they, what was anything save the fact that he had come Eloquent, dramatic in speech, handsome, and magnetic in person, day I learned her great desire for a better education, and her anxiety to reasoning or will powers, but with a complete and beautiful wardrobe in Dumont with a changeless passion for twenty-three years, and there has When she woke in the late morning, great splashes of sunlight were astringents and finally washed in cool toilet water and lightly brushed was dead or alive, married, or, terrible

clay and legal name only belonged to his wife. quite new to his pen. At midnight that pen dropped from his nerveless not love her. She knew that he had sought her hand wholly from ambitious and before going to the office for his final duties; but he seldom saw Mabel·s left ear which she offered him, and told her she had won a prize cemetery of many a dear hope, the dead-letter office. A personal in a she had conceived a most intense dislike for her. Joy was drawn toward its leaves. There are women who resemble the spruce in their perennial and handsome man. The ladies of the Rev. Arthur Stuart·s congregation soul. I dare not see you or speak to you while I am in this state of hoping to be shown the path of duty before he returned. the world as she is now; and many is the cheerin· cup of coffee or tay Church, flashed upon the people who had lingered near the door to see her It was, despite its preservation of Nature·s gifts, and despite its his mother in his choice of a wife; and the Baroness brought all her vast her own ideals, that she was incapable of understanding the conventional not understand it if she were told, for she is as ignorant and innocent She moved toward the stairway that led down to the street door; and as and would not be separated. She had been conscious of a feeling of overwhelming pity for the kind, face in her pillow that night. ·And since I cannot be, if only Alice had forth under a leaden sky and through a dreary November rain to the longer alone or friendless, for I had you. I sang as I had never sung, Arthur Stuart·s visit. She heard the drip of the dreary November rain of your deep sorrow at my death, which must come ere long, you will find in Beryngford. The indescribable change in the manner of her great delight to the young girl to go. russet leaves, when the fresh

hope and pride Mabel had not given or demanded a devoted love when she married Preston The rector smiled sadly. well and favourably known in Beryngford, if not as distinctly idea was.· ·JOY IRVING.· greatness in any art where religious feeling is lacking. Meantime the Baroness was growing embarrassing in her attentions. The can do for this girl to-morrow. Poor child, poor mother, to pass through welfare of humanity. With a malicious adroitness possible only to such a woman as the second ·I now write to you my last letter and my farewell. began to lose colour and substance and drop away among the wreckage of in a few days; I will write you after I reflect and pray.· The rector of Beryngford Church requested her to remain for a few ·Had I gone away with you as I consented to do, the world would have consciousness of being neglected. Again the Baroness would say: progress that she was promoted to the position of proof-reader ere six might have come into her life through me. Heaven knows I would have very consciousness that her mother·s experience had been an exceptional ·Your daughter has conceived a strange passion for me,· he said in a low the enormity of her sin. Had Mrs Irving bewailed her fall, and editorial on the matter of over-immigration, and his leaders on political room which I could not hear you say in this place. Go on.· waist was drawn in to an hourglass taper, while her ample hips spread out committee cut her heart like a poniard stroke. Sometimes we are able to fire, thinking that it was the work of one of those half-crazed beings ·But I might have done it in a decent manner if I had not lost all with you. How cowardly he seems when you think of it! Yet I am told parishioners,· Mrs Stuart said. ·I wonder, Arthur, why you take the annoyance at his heart; ·why, from the glimpse I had

dearly loved a title. She thought Mrs aristocratic house to be my bride. Ah, well, dear mother, you will, I her father·s lack of self-control in any strife with his passions, Alice the Baroness, rather than unwillingness to have her sin revealed to her the year sometimes brings, than all the burning June suns. The thought tortured him. To leave Joy at this time without calling to struck with the peculiar elegance and refinement of her appearance. Her cold and unloving wife into a jealous and nagging tyrant who rendered the should have been horrified to see you act in such a familiar manner congregation at all, it would lead to renewed pain and added hurts for ·Oh, Mr Cheney, pray forgive me!· she cried, looking more beautiful than The Baroness drank a quart of hot water every morning as a tonic for her reminder of his dependence upon the purse of his father-in-law. In those After a few moments she rang the bell vigorously. Maggie, the wood and the drawers of water, and we must have the delicate human It was perhaps ten minutes later that Joy Irving became conscious that The red spots faded to a sickly yellow in the invalid·s cheeks. ·Why become ugly old ladies, and why plain faces sometimes are beautiful in Berene entered the office as type-setter, and made such astonishing himself that a woman of her age, who had seen so much of the world, and remember, she had experienced such emotions, but she had supposed such ·But the time is now come, and I want no strange hand to deal you a blow Joy was still thinking of the reflection the rector had cast upon his And she blushed and paled with fright at her boldness. born. M·Allister, formed a varied and delightful society in the metropolis; she might not spurn him. He had heard and read of cases where a woman·s For how could they obtain money to convert the

play like that in the brief life you have passed on pull up a steep and rocky cliff. From the point to which he had succumbed·so soon at least·to the temptation held out by the former to blight, and sent her card marked ·urgent· to Mrs Stuart. ·I do not know by what right you ask these questions, Baroness Brown,· save at your own command. I go now, only because you bid me go. When we ·Some lady, I believe; I do not remember her name,· Alice answered down the stairs and out upon the street. ailing, complaining and discontented, and still a victim to the nervous matters. If men had had their way since the world began, there would be When Miss Lawrence·s mother, a nervous invalid, was informed of her a young lady who needed the position and the salary had been chosen to trustful nature had received a great shock in the knowledge of the shadow to be no more homeless, unloved, and alone, but his companion while life the most bitter and caustic of cynical critics at heart, though she be a more hopeless obstacle between them than this mother·s history had Joy·s birth. if it be a wise religion which allows a man to rob his neighbours on until ·Go and sin no more· sounds to the poor unfortunate more like ·Go of life, hope and ambition when he married Carrie Towne, the prettiest good woman to the borders of Paradise and leaves her with a polite Judge Lawrence many years before; and it was with sad and bitter hearts The masculine party is very dull, or the feminine very deceptive, when a Love and sorrow are twins, and knowledge is their nurse. To the fading beauty in her late thirties, a man in the early twenties the power to fascinate women when she chose to exert herself. She did Transcribed from the 1914 Gay & Hancock Ltd. edition by David Price, madam; I have never harmed you or yours, and you

that to some who listen, it is the divine spirit which makes compared to the gathered flower and its attending thorns. ·He, too, has suffered,· thought Joy; ·I have not borne it all alone.· ·It is an easy matter for me to find proof of my suspicions if I choose presence appeared to her as a natural result. He was the first to speak; has no family, and her alliance with my son would be a great drawback to Half-an-hour later Berene Dumont, standing by an open window with her she had, quite unknown to herself, left one devoted though humble friend the excitement of this new emotion, he grew weaker and weaker as the next and entered upon his chosen work when only twenty-five years of age. had been her ability to sleep under all conditions. The woman who can Some people think the way into heaven is through embroidered altar sent across my life at every turn? Why should the only two men in the strove to crush and kill this love because he had worked out an ambitious wanted to tell it to you before you made Alice your wife, yet the fear ·I will tell you why I ask this sacrifice of you.· shocking, more dreadful, than to have you make that girl your wife, choked voice. ·I heard this same story, but without names, from Berene her regard. Mr Brown had been very rich, and Preston Cheney was very knowledge that it was not owing to the shadow on her birth, but to the When he returned his mother watched his face with eager, anxious eyes. shown a decided interest in Mr Cheney, since his arrival in the place had been a widower more than a year when the Baroness took the book of employed a substitute because her mother was lying seriously ill at home. ·You judge others by your own true heart,· he said. ·But I know the speaking of these occurrences having taken place while she spent a summer me.· him.

corners of the meeting some weeks ago,· she said, and she noted with a sinking heart the to pain. Christ-woman, believed that all professed church members must feel the Mother Arthur, _God_, how can you all desert me so?· drove sleep from her eyes. A long time ago, longer than she cared to feet, all the aspect of life had changed for her. Baroness Brown had attended the sale of old Dumont·s effects. She had with. feelings gained an almost uncontrollable dominion over his reason, will Cheney retired to his own room, with the disagreeable words of his wife ELLA WHEELER WILCOX and daughter ringing in his ears, and the beautiful face of the young ·I only asked to be loved. Knowing nothing of the terrible conflict in the matter drop on one condition; and that condition is, that you extract and apron, all impressed him as he had never before been impressed by any greater, but rendered it more tasteless. had never suffered from them before, it might be that her time had now ·Darling,· she said, placing a sealed manuscript in her hands, ·I want Preston Cheney became more and more disheartened with the prospect of his face to run away with your heart. Nothing could be more unsuitable, more marriage? The first time the thought entered his mind he had cast it out for her sake, stirred her with a wild joy. God had seemed very far away, way of an education also, if she were ambitious enough to do so. Nearly the sorrow of separation, the strife with the emotions, the agony of organist of St Blank·s. brand from the burning. He never repented his act. He lived wholly for who sent for the rector, and gravely met him at the door when he arrived, satisfied with my choice.· left from my father·s belongings I resolved to use in cultivating my relationship with Ralph Waldo. Her father and grandfather and several the

its windows opening his steps directed toward the Palace. It was seven o·clock, and he knew connection of the church with Beryngford society rendered her, in the smile would be ungrateful indeed if he asked for more. That alone would daughter, and it was here the family resided, when not in Washington or whom you never laid eyes on until to-day,· pouted Alice. ·I am sure in a state of complete nervous prostration caused by the shock of conversation or sermon, which interested her, and epitomising the train ·errand of mercy.· She had not mentioned Miss Irving·s name to Mabel or daughter·s feelings, but she realised the fact that Alice had set her cheek. ·I feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude, dear Baroness,· Mrs Stuart jealousy of their associates. They moved in one of the many circles of Extremely fond of outdoor life, she walked, unattended, wherever her mood diet, her hours of repose, and her knowledge of skin foods and lotions, tiptoed lightly to his room. The bed had not been occupied the whole public. wholly upon his future son-in-law for courage and moral support during JOY IRVING had unpacked her trunks and set her small apartment to rights, gall and wormwood for the three feminine listeners. know my mother, and where did you know her?· The days that followed were full of sharp agony for her. It was not transplanting. She said to herself that she could never survive another your trail, and I have money enough to pay them for their trouble. But house where Mabel lounged or lolled, quite content with her situation THE Baroness had always been a churchgoing woman, yet she had never Joy sat silent and pale like one in a trance for a long time after she many sick-beds and death-beds together that we can speak as man to man, Since his return she had seen him but seldom, rarely save in the pulpit, of

dominated her unwilling mother the wretched months before its there are many like him, though that was my only experience of the kind.· Our guardian angels sometimes send these feelings as danger signals to and dutiful daughter.· people, it seems cruelly unjust that you are kept in ignorance of it. profoundly at night in times of sorrow, suffer the more intensely during ·Not come down? Then will you please call her, Maggie?· ·I suppose, mother, it is because I love Joy Irving with all my heart. Alice, and the helpless infant shared with its father the resentful anger the complexion of her mind during these years. Among its entries were hands, the heart of the wash-lady melted in her ample breast. When the young man barely thirty years of age, heir to a comfortable fortune, expressed toward her favourite tenant. Joy had taken a suite of four which pleased the Judge as much as it made his son-in-law miserable. ·If she is dead, I am her murderer,· he thought. But at that moment she how her prayers ascend. I am inclined to think we all ought to wear into a china bowl containing a small quantity of sweet milk, which was farewell.· into the path of designing people,· the Baroness said. ·She has a strong Bitter as had been her suffering at the loss of Arthur Stuart from her WHILE Joy battled with her sorrow during the days following Preston away with her, that is drivin· ye away, is it?· she cried excitedly; ·and the Baroness, who had seated herself on the divan at his side, leaned this step, glad to place a barrier for all time between him and Joy love·s love. at least once or twice a week. She sent for him to ask his advice on ·I am sure I don·t care to know her,· chimed in Alice. ·I thought her ·Then do not marry her,· Preston Cheney said quietly. ·Marriage without it knew the story, ·Behold how the man goes free.· Free! Great

helpless as an infant in the presence of an ailing woman; But Mabel Lawrence was one of those women who are never swayed by any use an enormous amount of money. As the young editor looked upon the girl before him, a passion of Mrs Lawrence. The physician has predicted the poor invalid·s near end. where some of the lower social lights had dropped her from their visiting world. Mrs Irving sympathised fully with her husband in his distaste for angular elbows and prominent shoulder-blades, the sallow skin and sharp the other. hand, she shuts the door on domestic happiness with the other. attractive male personality. Beginning with the marriage of her mother to the French professor, Berene weakness in myself. suffering humanity, rendered her pitiless as the grave toward one lonely true.· Then she said aloud: a desperate life, has embittered my whole existence. Never before did a titled mistress who had failed to pay them a cent of wages since they interest in the girl. No one knew better than the Baroness how to sow Her confusion, her appealing eyes, her magnetic voice were all fuel to own breast. She knew that Mabel was wholly incapable of coping with such Berene·s story, and she had been prepared to mete out to her that To a man of any nobility of nature, there can be small satisfaction in rendered the lady herself an object of greater interest to the majority at a hotel, Preston had remarked, ·I would as soon think of using my to be thwarted in a wish. Both parents had been slaves to her slightest her pride. face at the ceremony, save that of the groom, was the face of the bride·s money by which his honours were purchased was not his own. last year and left his widow and child in straitened circumstances. Mrs by word or line made my existence known to anyone I ever knew

natural child of your love, to marry the loveless, wretched has been. God grant that no worse woes befell Berene; God grant that I Her face would express all goodness if it were not so unhappy. ·Impressions· lay on a table close at hand. They are an effort of man to outdo God in creation. He never made a ·My child·the natural child of Berene·s love and mine, you say; oh, my against a loveless marriage, I should to-day be blaming myself for her been so interwoven with the music she had been playing, that his bodily store in Beryngford. He was French, and the national characteristic of be careful and tell her nothing sad while she is in such a weak state married a girl born in wedlock; and where is my companion?· He paused which forbade his feigning a faith he did not feel; and the daily lives leaping and quivering like living things across the foot of her bed; she young, are really happy in expression? Discontent, restlessness, poor Miss Adams. Surely few, very few, would forget Christ·s words to otherwise goad and torment the unhappy man. And Preston Cheney grew into His love for Joy Irving was not killed by the story he had heard. But it Does the girl know who her father is? And does Senator Cheney know of attractions. Dipping a soft linen handkerchief in the bowl of steaming milk and water, attributed largely to this habit. Little did you dream with what painful interest I listened to your views courage enough now to come here and ask you to go with me to Australia, sparring match with me; I want to talk to you about one of my unfortunate the musician who gave us that wonderful harmony of sounds. My child, how The tortured invalid fell back panting on her pillow. She put out her intense pain and anxiety. She had known for almost a year that she loved a uniform to church if we would really

that the man whom she had such a weight on his soul, such distress on his mind that death seemed to and _roué_. designed him for the clergy, and brought him up with the idea firmly loved father was a broker. That would damn him in the eyes of some the loss of what we claimed to despise. control of myself,· he said as he walked home. ·It was brutal the way I MORE than two decades had passed since Preston Cheney followed the twenty-eight, that most fascinating of all ages, as she took her seat in admiring eyes. marriage to a man three times her age; one Jacques Letellier, who offered tell your son perhaps, and if he doubts the story send him to me for its colours of the sky. purely the result of education. I am amazed, too, to discover this generations of hysterical women. But I want to tell you the story and other ways the good heart and intentions of Mrs Connor were unobtrusively I told mamma what the rector said about lying. She coincided with faults which had not suggested themselves to her own mind. Before the organist had finished her introduction, he turned to Alice, petty tyrant and a cruel husband and father when under the influence of sound of my voice!· he cried. ·Oh, why did I not find her before the Stuart had said. ·You have never been a mother, yet I think your see her seemed base and cowardly; yet he dared not trust himself in her absurd at the best. A man may spend his time and strength in buying and The pathway of the soul is not a steady ascent, but hilly and broken. thinking that her beauty and amiability were quite equivalent to any result of extreme emotion. Sometimes the people who sleep the most approached. But the net which he had woven was closing closer and closer about him, Preston Cheney, until, like the falling of stones and earth into a river she never

sentiments from policy. The landlady experienced the same haunting sensation of something past ·Answer me, Joy,· he was pleading. ·Answer me.· beautiful, beside being young and full of health. I am sure there could told me of your birth, a story she left in manuscript for you to read, figure of Joy Irving. The rector·s face grew pale as the corpse in the is a lady through and through, however humble her birth may be. But I ah, well! the Roman Catholics are wise in not allowing their priests and Certain savoury dishes found their way mysteriously to Miss Irving·s The rector was hurt and wounded by all this, and while he resented the keep alive, changed its political tendencies, infused it with western gave a slight laugh and said: frame of mind. No blame can be attached to her, and yet now that I inherited the weaknesses and faults of both parents, without any of their most cherished hope of all. congregation of St Blank·s. There are people in that congregation his physician had ordered a change of air. He went away in company with ·Yes, madame, awake and dressed.· greeted him with other than a smile. Then she apologised, saying: ·Even upon her, and her hands fell nerveless and inert upon her lap; she circumstances; you may have heard that they were quite well-to-do until career for himself. To extricate himself from many difficulties and Dumont·s dying lips more than two years ago. And just as Berene settled to the task of removing as much as possible all evidences of ·Maggie tells me you are ill this morning,· the Baroness remarked after a have felt and feared it must yet be told. How strange that a ·love several times mentioned her niece to me, a young girl who was away at woman he does not love, especially if he crucifies a vital passion for universe save the fierce fire in her own heart. was embodied in the

Therefore it was a matter of surprise to the young editor when he came quarries caused that village to spring into sudden prominence as a martyrdom as servant and slave to the caprices of her father, until his convenient to come, would we not Mabel?· human angels, the sweet sisters of charity, while I went forth to make a Virtue is very secretive about her payments, but the whole world hesitancy to make her his wife she understood, but his absolute desertion his house, and to be let alone as much as possible. It was the name, not She smiled upon him radiantly. ·I have just come in from a benefit The Baroness and Mabel had never been in Beryngford since the death of called him. ·Mrs Lawrence is dead!· she cried. ·She breathed only twice You are not Mr Irving·s child. You were born before your mother nevertheless. I followed this life for three years, seeing you only at armed with devil·s implements. reluctance and distaste. was most considerate and thoughtful in his treatment of servants. upon the Baroness. The rector·s card had read, ·Introducing Mrs meet the gaze of God, when we are afraid to meet the eyes of men. announcement had caused her gnawed at her breast like a rat in a her good health and extreme desire for popularity. Mabel and Alice were career, and the ambition I have for him to rise to the very highest it·s not Mrs Connor as will consist to the daughter of your mother, God THE congregation of St Blank·s Church was rendered sad and solicitous by ·Yes, there are many like him,· the rector answered. ·But you must Connor made her appearance with swollen eyes and red, blistered face. The materialist denying spirit is like the burr of the chestnut broke the seal. Slowly she read it to the end, as if anxious to make no disrespectfully. ·A merciful providence has saved us the necessity of defying the laws with

from her It was observed by the congregation of St Blank·s Church, shortly after nature, all its chivalry was aroused, and he believed he was plucking a the stepmother of Mrs Cheney, was known as ·The Baroness· caused some thought. Mr Irving had been one of these. Coming to New York from an mind on winning Arthur Stuart for a husband, and she quite approved of ·Was Mr Preston awake when you rapped on his door?· asked the Baroness. ·I understand her mother is seriously ill, and I think I will go around just as far away from me and mine as you can get·and sin no more!· Only with all the mulish persistency which her mother exhibited in small sacrament and avow himself a humble follower of Christ, what a revolution attachment,· Mrs Stuart interrupted. ·With your will-power, your brain, adventuress on that occasion, and her quiet and dull life in this live with this aunt. I remember her as a bright, buoyant and very believed in the beginning that he was showing Berene this kind attention insane wife was her half-sister. to get a little sleep now, madame. I thank you for your kind interest in feet encased in pretty slippers peeping from beneath her silken skirts least discerning eye, and the thoughts and feelings which have dominated many other days. Mrs Cheney and Alice, with their fretful, plain, Like some great, strongly coupled car, which loses its grip and goes upon him. The creamy pallor of her skin, colourless save for the full with her own music. to despise me.· took out her note-book, which bore a date four years old under its title ·You are really hideously passée, mon amie,· she observed as she peered Joy listened dreamily to the words he was saying. Her father·she was to closed-up bud in the bottom of her heart that day, as the quartette moved aloud: ·Oh, mother, mother, you were not

perception of strange thing happened. The room filled with a peculiar mist, like the sundry kindly acts which were not included in the terms of the contract. He could not wholly give up all thoughts of Joy Irving. She had grown to broken-spirited man, with a sickly, complaining wife and a brood of such dear parents, the world would seem insupportable, I am sure, were I were gone too. She worked for more than two hours without giving vent to the low-cut blue corsage like apple-dumplings over a china dish. Her It was only now that he had treated her with such rough brutality, and features, he conceded to be captivatingly pretty, however, and it seemed Irving, whose possible return at any day she constantly feared, and whose with the ladies of his congregation. And from the first Sabbath day when When the rector of St Blank·s returned from the Beryngford Cemetery, ·Her father was an earnest and prominent member of the little church Maggie was requested to bring up hot water and coffee, and great was her familiar and liberal-handed personage in that edifice. this is true; he has taken the form of drugs and spirituous liquors, and sorrow can deprive you of the joy which is your birthright. But there Lawrence; one to the chairman of the church committee, who had requested men of intellectual pursuits. He was clean-minded, independent, sure of expedient under the circumstances. Judge Lawrence died when Alice was fifteen years of age, leaving both his displease my mother and ask you to be my wife. The story your mother have done so much for her that you have stirred my better nature and made resentment at the fate which had dared to take away a member of her she acted also as seamstress and milliner for her mistress, and attended and that it was a case of mesmeric

my companion through time, and perhaps eternity. When I learned superior order, and only to be obtained by accident or by advertising and and soul places. Thoughts like these had more and more with each year filled the mind of sinner to sin no more. I felt you were that one, and so I appealed to To strong natures, the greater the inward excitement the more quiet the disagreeable duties for her. She had never made it a custom to pay out ambitious. My unusual sorrows will give me greater power of sooner had Mrs Stuart and her son left the city, than the Baroness sent Other people lost fathers and mothers, of course; but that Mabel Lawrence clouds. rest her soul, lavin· my house like this. To think that I should have Before the night had settled over the thriving city of Beryngford, the dishonour of debt, and Berene in terror yielded her word and herself the you arrive will seem an age of sorrow and anxiety to me. The inevitable is always right. Whenever a young woman shrouds her actions in the garments of secrecy, entertained when he began the note to his fiancée which the Baroness had sudden exclamation of pained surprise, for it was upon the pallid, be selfish, worldly-minded women; yet he administered the holy sacrament ·If only I could give Alice the benefit of my past career,· the Baroness The two spoke simultaneously, and the invalid had started upright in bed. Ten years of hard, unremitting toil and rigid economy passed away before against the window-panes behind the musician, lent a fitting of the approaching winter, is in the air. She had been labouring all day praised. It mattered little who it was, or how entirely out of her own world. of the Irishwoman, as the magnet draws the steel. Time and experience The young man hid his surprise under a gallant smile, and offering the and

a proposal of marriage or listened to a word of love in She had been playing for perhaps an hour, when a sudden exhaustion seized of his church. ·Queer, but I felt as if the presence of those men was an ·I wish she were my daughter,· he said to himself; ·what a comfort and only in coquetry and conquest is forced to relinquish these delights, she same time I know you will use your delicate tact to avoid wounding Miss social life of the city in which he lived. After his marriage his entire they entertained in an unostentatious manner, and there was nothing in when you are in need of that defence.· had been taught to read and write both French and English, for her mother and human love was very precious; too precious to be thrown away in coming to the boiling point over an alcohol lamp. This was now poured true of their spiritual adviser in Washington and in New York. until long afterward that she was able to write her ·impressions· of that When we say _of_ people what we would not say _to_ them, we are laid his hand on Joy·s head. ·Child, awake,· he said, and with these Despite your mother·s secretiveness regarding this portion of her person that Mrs Lawrence had fallen into a peaceful slumber, and that approaching, and knew that his doom was sealed. Lawrence, who left the bedside of the invalid to tell the caller in to find me fainting, suffering, and praying for death. The love in both capacity of landlady still maintained the airs of a grand dame, and of all that was noble, grand and good, she worshipped him as devout wainscot. love is unholy. Even to save life it is unpardonable.· looseness of views, and charitable judgments. To be sorry for man. ·Miss Irving was scarcely more than a child when she volunteered deadly fruit of insanity in Alice, was allowed by a kind providence to herself in a very handsome house which

retaining the upright beneath like the heavy mason work which supports a slender column. Tiny ·Yes, wait until we get home, and I will tell you all about her,· the all the young men of the middle classes in America do marry, for love, or never opened your bed. Something must have been in the air to keep us her reason seemed to be threatened. urge me·you must obey me this once·afterward I will obey you. walked in the Garden of Eden the morning after Creation. countenance which sparkles with health and absolute joy in life, we turn saving. I tried to befriend her, and hoped to waken the better nature Down into the committee-room, where several deacons and the young rector Irving·s manuscript, the father at whose funeral services she had so fallen, but all to no avail. At the end of two years, her case was demonstrative people very vulgar, and believed kissing a means of months had passed. And hour by hour, day by day, week by week, the He supposed Berene to be an upper servant of the house, and yet, as he sad! Better blood ran in her veins than coursed under the pink flesh of Christ·s words to a repentant sinner, but nineteen of that twenty reality of his present. But she was very young; he could afford to wait, retirement and retrenchment, she sallied forth to new fields, under a new bed, they changed the naturally direct current of his impulses into decided upon a similar course of treatment for the Baroness. for one dear to us, our love is augmented. A little less than half-an-hour afterwards Preston Cheney unlocked the voice. I advertised for embroidery and fine sewing also, and as I was an conveying germs of disease. The widow of Judge Lawrence was still an imposing and impressive figure youth, with an unusual brain and an overwhelming ambition, he had risen room,

Baroness gave an unpleasant laugh. and the changes which occur so rapidly in every society, the scandal in The Baroness descended to her room humming an air from an old opera, and which she knew must have been familiar to her mother·s eyes, of the new her maid and personal attendant, she paid no wages. all awake. I did not sleep an hour, and Mr Cheney never entered his room repentant woman he could pity and forgive, but it seemed to him that Mrs She felt that the young man was in some great trouble, unknown to her, The rector·s card admitted her to the parlour of a small flat. The Baroness; and that secret caused the cheek of the listener to grow pale possessions and selfish ambitions through the small end of the lorgnette, then turned in a mechanical manner to her delayed task. Her book of nature·s best gifts that he could have almost any woman for the asking the husband of another. Conscious that your wife was a hopeless shine upon the face of the woman whom he had just asked to be his wife. Mrs Stuart left the room, closing the door behind her as she went. She GAY & HANCOCK LTD. Next she lay on the floor flat upon her face, her arms across her back, Cheney, as he was twenty-three years ago. I am ready, however, to let a second Gethsemane for her sin. I think any girl or boy whose home life urge you to use it as a warning in your position of counsellor and friend be his wife, his helpmate, chosen from the whole world as one he deemed astonishing decrease in the needs of the poor and unfortunate. whom he should desire. But the Baroness believed much in propinquity; compared to the money of some commonplace adversary? Preston Cheney, the had many meetings in church edifices, in organ lofts. It seems natural resolved to live alone

difficult instrument.· nightmare dream to Judge Lawrence; and all of life, hope and happiness her that he should be shocked at the knowledge of the conditions under read, completely vanished during the weeks which followed the death of was as strong and unreasoning as the infatuation which her father had from your own mother·s hand, that I·ve had in the forenoon, to chirk me The marriage did take place three months later. Alice Cheney was not the his heart changed to unreasonable anger. questions of the day were all tinctured with a bitterness and sarcasm from the paths of peace and purity where she had wished to dwell. God to Beryngford, and met Sylvester Lawrence and his daughter Mabel. He met unusual voice. I have heard her singing about the halls a few times, and while gently fixed in his mind. you can rise to great distinction if you have the right influence to aid that door to the children of a man who trades in food, wherewith to jaw belied the softly curved mouth with its sensitive darts at the the world alone, and unafraid from this day onward. When I think of He sprang toward her with a wild cry of joy, but she was already flying medium height and perfectly symmetry of shape, her blonde hair and satin ·Oh, to be young and beautiful like that!· she sighed as she buried her And in the midst of these reveries and reflections, Preston Cheney came are so susceptible to a pretty face and figure, and I confess that Joy to the daughter of a rich and powerful man. He made no profession of health, charm, and a voice of wonderful beauty and power; a voice which even knowing that he left disgrace and death behind him. He realised the Baroness on these occasions, unless through her own design. spoke of her son in that manner), and that is how my son became speaker·s lips,

good-will which filled her heart for all her kind. Strive as she would, ·There is just one thing that gives me a constant pain at my heart,· Mrs excellent laundress. She was a person of ambitions. To be the owner of But somehow this morning God seemed nearer, and the consciousness of what a young girl.· your daily companionship instead of brief glimpses of you at the am sure you are able to seek new fields where you can bide your men, which brought the rector to the house far oftener than they could THE rector of St Blank·s Church dined at the Cheney table or drove in the light which flashed into the man·s face at the mere mention of the girl. until the tone and words of her stepmother aroused a resentful The accumulated knowledge of ages is sometimes revealed by a kiss. came to fall. It is enough for the world to know that he is rich·that caprice and she had ruled the household with a look or a word. Death had manuscript as I might leave you a weapon for self-defence. Use it only him the absorbing passion which an intense woman gives to her lover. To further fight against the deadly enemy of obesity, she lifted her arms fretful, nervous invalid who shared Judge Lawrence·s name, and this Baroness·s mouth were hard lines, and the expression of her eyes was not entering that sickroom to-day, my heart full of kindly sympathy, to She was an adept at the art of preservation, and greatly as she disliked chance of heaven; and that a strict observance of a Sunday religion would of ambitious young men. and so I feel myself the nobler of the two. Had you been more of a married, rather than to be loved, had been her ambition since she left But Alice grew more and more despondent as the months passed by; and When the fruit must apologise for the tree, we do not care to save ·But Alice really loves the rector, I

sensible. That she can conquer passion and A sad countenance may render a heroine of romance attractive in a book, The Baroness heard the click of Preston·s key in the street door, and she above her head slowly until she touched her finger tips, at the same time what you bear and hide every vestige of unhappiness from the world. You He would have hesitated, considered, and reconsidered, and without doubt This simple act of thoughtfulness from the young dependant touched the into new life and violence at the remembrance of Joy Irving·s fresh young are not like ordinary young women, and you and I have stood beside so Cheney, and brought servants, carriages and horses, and established for writing materials; and for many hours she sat propped up in bed CHAPTER II would never let go,· added Mabel, in her most acid tone. ·I must say, I the shadow of a red flag falling on a camellia blossom. Mrs Stuart had been an Emerson·in some remote way her family claimed While the Cheneys were known to be wealthy, and the Senator had achieved entail. And she must keep that money until she found some way by which The report was made twelve hours later. Miss Cheney was delirious, and This state of things continued only six months, however. Then it began It was, in fact, quite as much anger as grief which caused her nervous sweetest smile; ·but our rector urged me to come and so I felt emboldened failing in that, you would choose the daughter of some great and she had conducted her preparations for departure with the greatest The Baroness could not explain it, but as the girl emerged from the eyes, as he realised how far away these ambitions had seemed of late, To be let alone and allowed to follow her own whims and desires, and he said. ·It is something so

in the daughter·an interest I supposed to be purely that of a death. When he was finally well buried under six feet of earth, Berene estimate of the people of your congregation. I will go and see what I departure, and set hurriedly about her preparations. for nearly every other man in Beryngford. Her face, with its infantine been obtained through marriage, it still rendered its possessor and became a much more important feature in the congregation, owing to martyrdom he had endured as the husband of Mabel·s mother seemed like a The young clergyman·s absence at the time of her greatest need had caused by far than any he owed to his fiancée. But he had not the means to offered me a good home as his wife. It was the first honest love I had lover·s arms, are poor subjects to reason with. Though you tell the she could not cast off the depression caused by this vile letter. It was marry him. red lips, the dark eyes full of unutterable longing, the aristocratic and health in Preston Cheney. be unhappy. He had thought her an excellent type of the successful American Satan, the Baroness. I was the wash-lady there, for it·s not Mrs Conner restlessness and discontent spoke in his every movement, and at times the always brought on her breakfast tray. causing Berene to suffer from her anger as well. skeletons will rise to view, unless the woman permits herself to strive in that capacity during many years, had been retired on a pension, while entire feeling about life had undergone a change. For many weeks after The young man nodded silently, his eyes half closed with an expression of during one of these chats over cake and wine that the young man spoke of ·It is Arthur·s message, appointing a time and place for our meeting,· threatened to wholly envelop her; and the letter from the church Mrs Irving had died without

pardon, she spoke. fire upon the helpless enemy. repentance for sin which troubled me. Well may you ask why I did not Surely this was the time she needed to read that letter. That it least every day, and never employed a maid to assist her. One·s rival Preston Cheney with his dependence upon his father-in-law, and to Bringing up a tray covered with a snowy napkin, she stepped to one side me.· learning that its rector was on the eve of nervous prostration, and that Episcopalian, and whatever originality of thought or expression he may forth her soul in one last farewell to that instrument which had grown to intelligent girl. I have not seen her now during two months; and last She went out upon the street, and for the first time in her life she mind and body. companions, in the midst of people who would gladly have become her warm This disaster to his only child caused a complete breaking down of spirit estate, he said to himself, a sacrament to be entered into with young man replied. ·I have never dreamed of loving her, or winning her never to come alone again. It seems strange to me that men who are so once, and that was on the day when he had called to engage his room, a CHAPTER XX devoted to you, and never by look, word or act, seemed to remember my ·Mamma, I have brought a lady, a friend of Dr Stuart·s, to see you,· Joy As our fears, like our wishes, when strong and unremitting, prove to be without explaining the cause. corners; it was strange that something warmer than satisfaction did not of masculine seduction. But then it is a gift, not an acquired art, and Cross; it dates back eighteen hundred years·yes, many thousand years, age,· the Baroness said, and then she proceeded to outline Berene·s CHAPTER VII ingredient in the excessive grief of every selfish nature. people would pay

beauty, and the expressions of admiration with which and desolate being before the shadows of night had fallen upon the grave employ a detective to find Berene; and he was not sure that, if found, Irving; to be her friend and rector only, until by the passage of time, streets like a mad creature all that intervening time, trying to still other in subtle ways, and I have seen almost death-blows dealt in church which would lead Berene to disappear in such a mysterious manner at such all the world without incurring heavy expense.· passion for the girl. The more frivolous plunge forward like the drunken man who leaps from the its consequences. I have ever believed you to be a more divinely born utter, under the roof of a house of God, so strong were the influences of station of housemaid, Mrs Connor and the servants had expected her to happiness. unconscious face of Berene Dumont that his eyes fell. He lifted the mind. I fear for what I may say or do. I have not slept since I ·So she is, not over twenty-one at most, and woefully ignorant for that conversation which had taken place between herself and her son; and of served only to further increase her frenzy. She screamed and beat the language in which to converse with angels. two confidential chats with the feminine Cheneys in the parsonage on Joy Irving received a letter from him which read as follows:· heaving. Before he came to Beryngford, he had fought his battle between feeling or defy public opinion by too precipitate methods. ·I did not think you were a man to coin pretty speeches,· she said. could well afford to be criticised or rebuked by her, if the result was hearing him spoken of as a valuable acquisition to Beryngford·s much more in his senses than in his ideals. Irving·s trouble, but I thought it unwise to take her until I had seen entrance, but she

of her profession. Juan, who was relating his gallant adventures with a handsome waiter girl love.· beyond the thought of my own ruin, rose the consciousness of the ruin I brings us butter and eggs from the country is quite fascinated with her, the girl and toward his mother. When the wedding took place, the saddest ·Fate hastened and furthered my plans for departure. Made aware that the paused before allowing his feeling to shape itself into thoughts. Then dismissal from the church committee. It acted upon her like an electric Insane. I leave by the first express to bring her body here for daughter is a sacred one. This morning when I was urging her to tell me known in the past came over her. But when the girl spoke, a more Mrs Lawrence. Sorrow follows close on joy in this life.· if he was a grocer. The American idea of aristocracy is grotesquely That the change was for the better could not be questioned. Never before am alarmed at her condition, and I shall hope for an early report from which to a weak and selfish nature is as pleasing as it is distasteful to of radiant beauty entered the room. a promise from your daughter that she will not encourage the attentions She had been the organist in the grand new Episcopalian Church now for mused. ·And the fact that I _do_ wonder is the sure proof that I am aims for me. Earnest Christian and good woman that you are, you have a yours vitally; it also concerns me and mine. I am sure, when you have should realise he was to be pitied, not adored!· pause, too, and waited for the sound of the opening of his room door, where he had placed the body of his wife beside her father, he found this believe that praise to others detracts from their own value. to realise that her daughter was no other than the shameful offspring of live there; and every morning when the

difficult problem The Baroness not only possessed the Beryngford homestead, but a house in to sin against the laws of man by living with the woman I do love; will the agonising pain in her heart. Preston Cheney had long been her ideal The young rector looked his mother full in the face with calm, sad eyes. vestments to her appearance, as the withering branch clothes itself in the place. She is so sensitive to her surroundings, and it might be too or enemies when face to face with them, but after we leave their more of womankind than he had learned in all his sixty and nine years she was not alone in the organ loft. She had neither heard nor seen his Mabel some hours of hysterical weeping. This letter was written by Judge Mabel, and you know what a farce, ending in a tragedy, our married life surged about him, he lay back in his easy-chair as a bather might lie the same. Lawrence, relating to me. her story, and now when the rector of St Blank·s Church was her listener, committed. Yet of course I have had little experience in life, with had formed that very day·ties which he swore to me should be broken ere their granddaughter, and, much as the unhappy woman regretted her foolish such maiden; instead it had swooped down upon him in the form of an pity and protection in the heart of this strange woman. Yet, since the death of Mr Brown, more than a year past, the Baroness had The sick man started up on his couch, his eyes flaming, his cheeks intellectual society, the Baroness decided to come out of her retirement and harmony. She was incapable of reasoning, and conscious only of two She left the office a few moments later; but it was not until after shame, and of two weak, uncontrolled parents, can be virtuous, Both were city born and city bred, yet both were as unfashionable and

It had With a lagging step and a listless air, Preston made his way up the first a measure protected her from man. When any woman breaks through these Berene. The Baroness had dropped some remarks about her servants, and with witticisms and bon-mots which she had never uttered, when talking of feel every whit as well acquainted as he. I suppose such thoughts revolting story, the early chapters of which were written years ago, but the rector, the Baroness had not forgotten the rector·s mother. She knew To forget benefits we have received is a crime. To remember benefits and talents, and I would like to be in a position to silence these mouth, and two perfect sets of yellow-white teeth, with only one descending to the street door. to them without compunction of conscience, and never by question or the lady you brought to call upon me I recognised·the Baroness. from her, clearing my personal character, or giving her the belief in the legitimacy of her child, and in her own purity, that she in a distant interior town, where, ·after the death of the Baron, she had be wrong in the clear light of a sunny morning. The events of the an extended journey impossible for him. To trust Mabel in the hands of terrible it is like anguish.· afternoon at least.· people, and yet refuses to associate with them, it always incites their cloths. protect myself had I used my will-power and my reason. Like many another take you from me; even after I am gone, I would not have him know of your giving to the cold and vapid woman the face and form of a sensuous siren, child. As the matter could in no way concern anyone else, Mrs Irving·s of all our kind. To yield to it, fills us with suspicion of all. There are some things which will deeply pain you, I know. Do not force inspires an innocent and unworldly young man. He was

my convictions. I think I could have, were you to stimulate her. I would like you to meet her, and like her to meet your wife and remained at the bedside of Miss Lawrence. little more than two weeks past. ·Please ask Miss Dumont· (Berene was always known to the other servants 12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET, STRAND lest new hurts should await her. might buy one·s maid, she reasoned, and it was well to have no confidant maintained the tone of his church and rendered him an object of reverence It was in thoughts like these that Joy relieved her heart of some of the It was the second Mrs Lawrence (still designated as the ·Baroness· by her there came rushing back to her heart all the old love and sorrow for the God, speak and tell me what you mean; speak before I die of joy so remembrance and the tidal wave of memories which swept over me when in she laid her hand upon his shoulder and said gently but firmly: ·Not now, originally written for the Garden Scene in _Faust_, and which the church pagans worshipped their sacred idols; and, without knowing it, she gave time, and Mr Irving learnt Berene·s name, occupation and destination. He wealth had played; but she was quite content with affairs as they were, longer would be an intrusion. religion and human passion, and passion had won. He had cast under his ephemeral results. It is when he says reverently, ·Behold what powers pass out. Among those who lingered was the Baroness; and all day she young statesman·s home the most dreaded place on earth to him, and caused marriage. I die strong in the belief. God bless you, my dear child, and heart went out in pity, and I have given her a home. She is really a had taught Mrs Connor to be discreet in her treatment of her tenants; to sinful or weak ancestors are as nothing beside the God within.

would have flown to her, from her like the perfume from a flower. has boldly taken and arranged as a quartette to the words, ·Come unto email ccx074@pglaf.org The rector came, and his presence at once soothed the girl·s delirium. ·Decidedly so! She seemed to hang on to your father·s hand as if she the news, but you have been so kind, and I feel that you ought to know it innocence and sweetness. Mind and morals are greatly influenced by position, wealth and family to a marked degree. You would, I know, like power in the Cheney household, and at the same time turned an already They were seated on a rustic bench now, under the shadow of a great tree. when all the desolation of the dying summer, and none of the exhilaration of two flights of stairs which intervened between the street door and his church, the music penetrated too, causing the business which had brought Fathers are only distantly related to their children; love for the had made a fortune in the saloon business, or who had himself acquired a hours of extravagant weeping the previous night, followed by a day of Joy held the letter in her hand a long time, lost in profound reflection. suffocation and brought cold beads to his brow; and just as these familiarity of others, all told her that her fears were realised; and and now to see ye driven away by the divil·s own! But if it·s the fear ·No matter what else a man may do for position, don·t let him marry a CHAPTER III mirror, in the broadest light, she saw no flaw in skin, hair, or teeth, adieu. first word dispelled the illusion. words··If unhappiness ever comes to you, read this letter.· to be prepared for the worst. fashionable church, had no idea of being so impolite as to refuse to them together, to be suspended temporarily. obedience to any man-made law. of view. The young woman watched

the rising day to me, the first to give me hope, courage and with constant toil and care, retain an appearance of youth and charm into me away from these pleasant associations.· He paused for a second, and rector went away for his health. strive as she would, she could not drive away a vague, strange uneasiness supernatural qualities and deprives us temporarily of our reason. She made her resolve known to the rector. the world, and strove to rear Joy in what he believed to be a purely she said, ·and I do not believe it ever saves sorrow. But I see you do facing Senator Cheney. so the seed of insanity which in the first Mrs Lawrence was simply a case often noticed the young girl in the shop, and in the street, and had been ·Yet a strange and sudden resolve came to me as I listened to him. Far recipes for producing slumber. She said the alphabet backward ten times; during his life, and gave to his memory after he was gone. And because Alice did not have it, the Baroness went to sleep with a It is a pity that people who despise civilisation should be so not expected to woo sleep easily after taking such an important step as ·Oh, that is a terrible reflection on Christians,· cried Joy, who, a born affection possible for her to feel, Berene bestowed upon her husband passed when he again occupied his pew. ·Yes, I surely do; nor does the belief conflict with my religious faith. sickening sense of sorrow and fear at the thought that there existed such paroxysms. Mabel Lawrence had never since her infancy known what it was At last, exhausted, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. It was only a few weeks later that the end came to all her dreams, think of all this before instead of after the error was committed. Why At the end of three months he came home stronger in body and mind. He memory of Mr Irving,

congregation. His successor was Reverend Arthur Emerson Stuart, a about her face which I never liked; and I fully understand now why I did ·Miss Dumont,· he said coldly, ·I think we will have to dispense with face her; and as she met the eyes of her visitor the young woman·s pallor The second blow came in her dismissal from the position of organist at Arthur Stuart adored his mother, and stifling some commercial instincts ·I hope you and Alice will become good friends,· Mr Cheney said warmly. cradle, and Mr Irving had given her every advantage to study and perfect all the secrets of the toilet, those divine elixirs, unselfishness and very scene of her mother·s early life; she longed to make inquiries, but with nursery maids or kitchen girls. The very thought of it offended his dictates of his ambition and married Mabel Lawrence. But this happiness was not to be granted to the dying man. Overcome by to whom all men were prey. She had always been more or less attending divine service, now that Preston Cheney sat in the pew. All upon the unhappy father to endeavour to soothe the violent child. And ·It seems to me I could not love a man who did not seek to lead me Cheney household obtained spiritual manna in New York, died when Alice bitterness and sorrow which weighed upon it. And day after day she bore town. While Joy was in the midst of her preparations for departure, Mrs If we could all be compelled by some mysterious power to _think what he believes to be true and right, no matter what his congregation Cheney will find her grief less, now that she has imparted it to me. I the deathbed of the unfortunate sinner without having expressed one of exerted a soothing and restful influence over my wife, and you may have down the street the memory of her mocking eyes. whole shameful

the laws of God and the laws made by men, and bruised in heart and in rector·s plans for rest and travel. Mrs Stuart informed her of the be wise for you to go where the facts are not so well known as in the him the only way of escape from a life of torment. occurred to her that Fate had with its usual kindness thrown in her path in a drawer, there clung about this man the faint, suggestive fragrance intervals. Then the consciousness came to me that without long and back to the tenth century. I carry a coat-of-arms older yet·the Mabel was wholly unable to comprehend the depth or violence of her paper, idly scanned and tossed aside. riveted the gaze of every beholder, and drew all eyes to her whereever I have learned, too, that the loss of my position here as organist is and lifted her head and chest twenty-five times. This exercise was to daughter. Added to this, the intrusion of the Baroness into this long middle life; but she who would pass that dreaded meridian, and still exterior; and Jay passed through the services, and performed her duties, be a part of his hopes and dreams of the future, as she was a part of the was helping him to solve a painful problem, had at times, before this had heard; she had made her statement, one which she knew must startle What was this ignorant daughter of a French professor, that she should widow and his daughter handsomely provided for. good, the letter would not have seemed to her so cruelly unjust and Mrs Lawrence, she endeared herself to Mrs Cheney, by a thousand ·It seems to me there can be but one school in spiritual matters,· Joy simple lawn or print gowns were made and worn in a manner befitting a sound of his name. She had seen this man but a few times, and spoken unusually so this evening. Perhaps because he had so recently looked intriguer; and yet

elegance of the There was a moment·s silence; then Miss Dumont said: ·I think I will try Mr Cheney always had a kind word for the laundress, and a tip as well; his mother happy. With her wide knowledge of human nature, she had not PRESTON CHENEY walked briskly down the street after he left his fiancée, set her small heels together, turned her toes out squarely, and, keeping ever known a sorrow. All of sincere gratitude, tenderness, and gentle another hæmorrhage,· cried the startled girl; but her mother lifted her against the stained window, and the wailing of the wind. changed for me since then! The universe seems larger, God nearer, and his embarrassing position in the Palace, as well as to establish his Earth life is the middle rung of a long ladder which we climb in the home for you. My voice, as is sometimes the case, was richer, stronger him also. Well, I can be as brave as my mother was. I, too, can widow, though she refuses to use her dead husband·s name.· ·In the overwrought and desperate mood in which you found me, it did The more intense draw back, startled at the unknown world before them. their personality to incite envy or jealousy. Therefore the career of lived in a blissful consciousness of loving and being loved, which is to When the service was over, Mr Cheney did not pass out at once, as was his ·Mother, Arthur, pity me, pity me!· she cried. ·I am all alone, and the make him happy. Never desert him.· ·BARONESS BROWN· was a distinctive figure in Beryngford. She came to the would be dim in the minds of people when, after a year or two more of a time, and so the days passed and he married Mabel Lawrence two months practising the whole morning. People paused on the street to listen to native-born American directly descended from a Revolutionary soldier, Irving,· she said.

and loss which Preston Cheney·s unexpected that I hesitate to take the happiness offered me?· she cried, as she tore competency as a police officer. halls, and frequently whole days elapsed that he met her only in the he would have asked her to sit with him in a conservatory. It was a which her mother had vanished twenty-two years before. husband·s influence, and to accuse him of all manner of shortcomings and in time the landlady of a comfortable and respectable lodging-house, and The young rector·s eyes were streaming with tears, as he reached over and He spoke with her in the hall one morning not long after that; and then may interrupt the rendition of a great work, but not man. That were left the city; and she had no correspondents. It was her wish and desire conventions and errs, she suffers the scorn of others who have kept these self-protecting and society-protecting laws; and, conscious of their He met her on the stairway the first morning after his arrival, as he was was sixteen years old. He was a good old man, and a sincere should last. her room on the attic floor at the Palace. She had been walking the good people, who place no confidence in jail birds. of mine. Please go out, dear, and shut the door. I wish to see her listened to his slow step as he ascended the stairs. She heard him which she was so famous. And when by the closest inspection at the Berene was fourteen at that time. She had never been at school, but she incentive to his overwhelming ambition for place, power and riches. He ·Miss Dumont has not yet come downstairs, madame.· Joy looked at her rector with startled eyes. ·A lie is never excusable,· world who interest me to-day, be so infatuated over that girl? But if I emotions, realises its grosser elements. are other and more important affairs waiting for me now.·

married, seemed heaven to me; but to know that by one rash, impetuous act of circumstances. May I mention your name when I call, in order that Miss Beside this radiant vision of loveliness and genius, Alice looked plainer influence was not wholly lost upon the Judge himself, who never looked every month, and saving the few thousands she possessed. She would be Preston was not one of those young men who find pastime in flirtations ordinary town puzzled him. He could not imagine a woman of that order love for humanity. Faith in divine powers, too, and resignation to the purchase of a large pipe organ, chanced to fall under her eye just as felt his cheek tingle with anger and humiliation. The Baroness had read To these impressions Joy added the following:· As a rule, when a woman opens the door of an artistic career with one [Picture: Decorative graphic] Even after he had heard the story of her life, he was not deterred from faded she appeared in the morning light. ·But I think I shall be quite That afternoon the young editor left his office at five o·clock and asked lifetime, Preston was subjected to a great deal more of her persecutions was always left burning until his return. As he reached the landing, he institutions, and cheerfully aided their charitable work. are unknown to or neglected by mortals, that we reach up to the the fulfilment of a love dream, like inhaling the perfume of a rose, that he now owed a duty to the girl he loved, higher and more imperative ·Poor thing, here you are alone again,· she would say on entering the ·I could throttle her,· she cried, ·I could throttle her. Oh, why is she stranger than the wildest fiction·the story of your father·s life. America, with butchers and Dutch peasant traders only three or four of a French baron in early life served to allay curiosity, while it advantage. gone.

that.· nature. the altar of sacrifice; and Judge Lawrence pressed a kiss on the lobe of room. The first floor was in darkness; but in the upper hall a dim light It is only when God and man have formed a syndicate and agreed upon and horrify her son, with his high ideals of womanly purity, and she left Joy had from her early girlhood been an earnest and sincere follower of with the tray. embarrassments, and to further his ambitious dreams, he betrothed himself Alice Cheney·s family was of the best on both sides; there were wealth, learn that your mother·s life was insured for a considerable sum, I church whose glorious voiced organ gave her so many hours of comfort and occasions as ·The Baroness.· And there was no skeleton to be hidden or the young rector; she had believed that he cared for her, and without friends, had she permitted. curtains, a strange, confused memory of something and somebody she had kind or tender; yet she was everywhere conceded to be a universally But when he reached home, the surprising intelligence awaited him that ·Whatever the manuscript may have to reveal to me,· she said, ·it is time sort of stupefied awe, and allowed him to proceed, while miserable ·Oh, surely,· she said, ·you cannot mean that I am the only one of the did not realise the difference. And meantime the church grew and extremities. Artistic by nature, and with an eye to form, he had never once experienced for Berene Dumont; but instead of struggling against the The Baroness was not without feeling. Her temperament was far from the Baroness proceeded to dress for a drive. Even the most jealous rival battery of fascination to bear on Mrs Stuart, and succeeded in making and reminded Preston of the grotesque cuts in the humorous weeklies, this newcomer. boarding houses, rendered it a convenient place for business

condition of things is, imagine how much worse it was a prayer, every emotion was linked with religious fervour. I was no Her arrival in this quiet village town was of course the sensation of the score of years ago. ·What a strange thing these resemblances are!· she moment of their meeting, grew and strengthened, until he realised with a After the devil had made all the trouble for woman he could with the coached the girl in coquettish arts when alone with her, and credited her resign her position as organist. Cheney took no more delight in the rôle of father than he had found in young American there was the additional sting of knowing that even the hand. tell you. I promised your father when he was dying that I would find that both blessings were irrevocably lost to her. and gone when she looked on the girl·s beautiful face, which had so church organist, she felt herself unable longer to cope with Fate. into the dark eyes, and a small red spot only glowed on either pale dinner napkin for a necktie, as finding romance with a servant girl.· lodge, and the handsome widow found no trouble in filling her rooms with and mother·s ill health has been a sorrow, but we have always been so And then the Baroness, with drawn lips and anguished eyes, took both of and his door open and close. young woman meditated upon the situation·triumph over other women who had had obtained honours and riches from life, but she pitied him for his me anxious to emulate your example. In talking with her in the hall one be most happy to do so. I should like to make the acquaintance of your This rôle was one he had very willingly permitted her to pursue, since Mrs Connor became a secret devotee at the shrine of Miss Dumont. Miss Lawrence was not aware of the part Berene Dumont had played in her under

her past lived the life of a recluse. It puzzled him, as a student of human mother who is a milliner, on business, and your tact would do the rest. blonde women with large hips and busts, and small waists and feet, are as possibility of winning a young man like Preston Cheney overbalanced all beauty and Preston Cheney·s admiring looks and words. through a narrow hall, and into a room which had evidently been intended not like it. Of course, Mrs Stuart, this story is told to you in strict But this young clergyman, having recently been called to preside over the The relationship of your wife to me made the contemplated sin no into his labour with feverish intensity. He wrote a particularly savage school; being incapable of loving, she was incapable of appreciating the had such music pealed forth under the tall spires of St Blank·s. The new out of herself. You could make her acquaintance through approaching the She thought of the rector as dead to her. She believed he had given her heart-sick and disgusted with the annoyances and vulgarity I was every way his inferior, and wholly unsuited to fill the position his wife die.· She had never been in a fashionable assemblage; she had never attended a other considerations in her mind. She had never been a vulgar coquette former that fever has poisoned the mother·s milk, or the latter that came to him of another child lying cuddled in her mother·s arms in a closing in to crush out his life, Preston Cheney saw his wedding day Connor was the ambitious ·wash-lady· at the Palace, Berene Dumont came to fold. It seems to me that these religious institutions are getting to be Yet he wrote her a letter, directing it to her at the old number, the same power with Mabel. Stay with us, I beg of you, through the and does sleep eight or nine hours out of each twenty-four is well armed An hour

husband, who is dead. I have never volition of her own, it changed to a passion of human love, human desire; error in understanding every phase of the long story it related. merely to appeal to her son·s affection for her, without making any the pen of a Mrs Southworth. A fortune had been expended on Alice·s musical education, yet she could Meanwhile Senator Cheney·s purse was always open to any demand the church Miss Irving had left the metropolis. A brief note to the church were ill-gotten blood money, ground from the suffering poor by the power in these matters. to tell me what troubles her, and advise me how to help her.· Lawrence, and announced his marriage to Baroness Brown. Judge Lawrence marriage. Disappointed wives, lonely spinsters and romantic girls believed they said gravely··the right one. And I think one should preach and teach Meantime the hour for her hot water arrived, and Berene did not appear. world as it is. Yes, the members of my church would forgive Miss Adams The rustle of her silken morning gown caused Berene to turn suddenly and which the father·s appetite for drugs cast over her whole youth. ·They air with her thin arms and legs until nature exhausted itself, then she to be able to do the same with Arthur, after all the money which had been entertainments were described in column articles by the press. seized his razor and threatened suicide as the other alternative from the are known to but two beings on earth, if indeed the other being still the actual wife of Mr Irving in the name of law and decency than she had opened her eyes and looked full into his, with a gaze which made his The Baroness leaned lower over the pillow of the invalid as she answered: Senator Cheney was not a church member, and he seldom attended service. offence. It occurred